Description
Mr. Gallant speaks about the children and the status of women in some parts of the Middle East that he found hard to accept.
Fred Gallant
Born into an Acadian family in Mont-Carmel, Prince Edward Island, Mr. Gallant joined the Army and rose to the rank of Captain. He served two tours in Cyprus as part of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) during the 1970s and 1980s as Battery Captain. His methods helped many soldiers and his interventions most likely saved the lives of his own, and many Greeks and Turks. Years later, now a Major, he became a UN Military Observer as part of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO), maintaining the peace between Israel, Lebanon and Syria. He worked in all three middle eastern countries and has some eye opening stories to tell.
Transcript
But you go through the village the people are very receptive. You see the children on the street, they’re all over the place and they’d see you, “UN, UN, UN!!” and then come running to you. I always kept a bag of candy and I would give candies out to the kids, and I’d offer them sometimes to the mother that was with them and they’d say, “No, no!”and give them to the kids, but you look back in the mirror and she’d be eating one too type thing. Because that would be a treat that she doesn’t get very often. And there’s more kids in the Middle East that’s got a little Canadian flags that I gave them, that’s quite amazing. What’s sad is that you see all these beautiful young girls, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and especially on Sunday evening from about five to seven, you’d see them parading in their best bib and tucker and they’re walking up and down the street and we used to call that the “parade of the virgins” because they’re going out there and you see all the young men of the village. They’re all standing and looking and oogling and talking and so on and that’s what they’re doing, is selecting. You see them a little later on, they’re married and then you look at them and they’re probably twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two and they’re really starting to show labour, the work and they’ve got three or four kids and by 38 or 39 they’re just, they look like an 80 year old grandmother. Now what you’ve got to realize and what shook me the most was, we’d be driving along and they’d be working in the field and it’s time to go home. There’s the burrow, the husband’s on the burrow, the son’s on the burrow, all the grain they’ve picked is lined up on the burrow. Walking in front is the wife and daughter with big stacks of grain on their heads and they’re going home, and when they get home she has to do a meal and everything else and the husband will go out and have coffee with his buddies in the city square until dinner is ready. And they’re basically, they have no, they’re not a person, they don’ t have rights, they’re a woman and that’s a property of the man. That was so hard to adapt to and accept.